Where are you from?

I live in Blackfoot, Idaho, a small town in the middle of an Indian reservation, about 175 miles north of Salt Lake City. We are pretty close to Yellowstone Park and the Grand Tetons.

Home course?

We have a 9-hole course in Blackfoot that my wife and I designed and built for the city, so it’s my “home course,” but I really feel at home on any course.

How and when did you first discover the game?

We were camping with some friends at Lake Walcott State Park, near Rupert, ID in 2001. There were these funny looking chain things all over and someone said they were for Frisbee golf. We had some catch discs in the car, so we went and played. We were hooked!

I went home and did an internet search and found out that this was a real sport with specialized equipment, courses all over the place, an association, tournaments, the whole deal. There were only a couple courses in our part of Idaho at the time, so we went to the city officials and proposed putting in a course in an unused area of a park. We got the green light right away and off we went.

Do you remember the very first golf disc you ever threw?

Yes. It was a Valkyrie. I also got my first ace with it, so it hangs on my office wall.

How did you become involved with EDGE?

That’s an interesting story of coincidence. You have to understand that I was really new to disc golf and didn’t know who the key folks were. We’d joined the PDGA and I read the discussion forum pretty regularly. I saw a post by this fellow named Harold Duvall about how his company was negotiating with Walmart to put discs in their stores. I sent him an email, saying that there was a Walmart right next to our course and that I would sure go talk with them about carrying discs.

Harold emailed me back and said to give him a call. We talked a bit about Walmart, but then he asked me what I did for a living. I told him I’d been an educator most of my career and also did some curriculum work. Harold told me that he had this idea about a program for schools and that he even had a name/acronym for it, but that he didn’t know how to make it happen. He asked me if I was interested in working with him on it, so I wrote a 2-page abstract of what I saw it being. And the rest is history. (Oh, I looked up Harold’s info and found out he was a World Champ, Hall of Famer, and all the rest.)

I came out to Rock Hill that fall for the USDGC, to meet Harold in person and to talk about where we were going to go with all of this. Harold had an early tee time and the new women’s World Champion was playing in his foursome. About halfway through the round, as I walked with them, it became evident that Des Reading was going to be a great addition to the team, and along with Des, we got Jay.

We began work on the first lesson plans almost immediately, with it being published the next spring. In addition to the basics of disc golf, I insisted from the outset that we be a ‘classroom-linked’ work. This means that we have lessons on other subjects like math and health, that tie in to the sport of disc golf. This give teachers a justification of adding another element to their curriculum, as well as showing the students that you need more skills than just throwing a disc to be successful. We are slowly working our way toward the second edition, hopefully to be ready by the end of the summer. The three of us have done about 20 educational conferences together, and each of us has done any number of other smaller seminars and conferences. We’ve talked with thousands of teachers, given inservices to entire school district PE staffs, designed courses for camps and schools….all of it as Team EDGE.

Any idea how many schools are actively teaching disc golf as a result of the EDGE program?

We’ve got around 300 schools in, at last count, 38 states, 3 provinces, and 5 foreign countries.

Are there things in particular that really excite you about EDGE potential in 2007?

I’m most excited about our new instructional DVD, “Getting the EDGE.” We’ve had the idea that we needed to get something like this out for a long time, but our budget kept in on the back burner.

Last year, the 2006 Pro Worlds raised enough money to give EDGE a grant that covered our production costs. We hired Tightline Productions, from New Jersey, to do the video work. They had done some good stuff for the Ultimate Players Association, and I liked their style of work. I wrote the script, with input from Des and Jay and from Dave Dunipace. Tightline came to Rock Hill last October and spent four long days shooting with Ken Climo, Dave, Des, Jay, Angela Tschiggfrie, Courtney Peavy, Cory Sharp, Steve Brinster, Brian Schweberger, Avery Jenkins, and about 200 schoolkids from the local elementary schools. Over the past several months I’ve guided the editing process by email and phone conference. We worked on graphic and slo-mo detailing of the techniques involved and got, by my reckoning, one of the best instructional videos out there for any disc sport.

The DVD opens with an introduction of the sport, from history to equipment, to courses, to throws. Then Kenny teaches the best lesson on backhand throwing I’ve seen. When you see him unload his backhand in 20x slow motion, every split second highlighted with graphics and detailed description, you’ll understand why he is the best of the best. Brinster and Avery also show why they are right up there. The presentation moves on to Dave taking the forehand throw apart and showing you why he so effortlessly does it. The bird’s eye view of him moving across the tee pad is worth the price of admission alone. There’s also a great segment of Brian Schweberger making those incredible overhead throws he does. Dave’s little tip about the mental game is also priceless.

The next section has Des and Jay Reading teaching the various combinations of stance and throws that make up the putting game. Shot from many different angles, the viewer gets the sense of what it’s like to putt like a champion. The main program ends with Angela, Courtney, and Cory playing through a hole from tee to scoring, with many of the common rules issues illustrated and emphasized with graphic elements. The special features menu lets you see slow motion reviews of each of the throws in the main presentation, with mnemonics to help you remember the steps. We also edited a music video element that can be used on Channel One or in cable access broadcasts or just to have a little fun with (listen to the sound of the disc as it comes out of Kenny’s hand).

The DVD features Innova’s Dave Dunipace which is uncommon for Dave. He has an exceptional understanding of disc flight and the mechanics of
throwing. How did Dave’s participation influence the direction of the film?

Working with Dave was both a blessing and a curse. The man has such and incredible knowledge of throwing that I had a TON of information to work with, which was the blessing. The curse was that the man has such and incredible knowledge of throwing that I had TEN TONS of information to work with. Dave and I are about the same age, so we get along quiet well, personally. I’m a new player, in the scheme of things, and I don’t have any pretense that I’ll ever be very good at it. So I came to the project with the eye of our intended audience.

Dave gave me volumes (of Doctoral dissertaion level material) and I put out the Reader’s Digest edition (at the 5th grade level). The great thing to come of this is that Dave spent many hours with Tim Flagler, the videographer, and we have hours of tape in the can. You may very likely see “Getting the EDGE - The sequel” at a much competitive technique level, someday in the future. This production was meant to (and does) meet the needs of the entry level player and the school teacher that wants to run a disc golf program but doesn’t have the personal experience with the sport. Watching and listening to someone like Dave Dunipace, within the context of that audience is a great teaching tool.

It is a joy to see kids experience the game in a positive way. Have there been any unforgettable moments during your hands on experience teaching the game to children?

My favorite EDGE moment was when we were hosting the local school kids at the USDGC in 2005. It was a chilly morning and we were standing along the #5 fairway, waiting for the players to throw second shots. Avery Jenkins was standing right in front of us doing the power pull with his towel to keep his arm warm. The little girl next to me tugged on my hand, looked up at me, and in total dead seriousness said, “Mr. Jon, Mr. Jon. Is he gonna throw that rag?”

Another epiphany came this year when we were at the AAHPERD (PE Teachers’) Conference in Baltimore. I talked at length to a young Navajo teacher from Kayenta, Arizona. I later discovered that he’d been a student in one of the first EDGE based college teaching programs in the country, at BYU. So our work five years ago is now bearing fruit, as it looks like we’ll be putting in a permanent disc golf course on his school’s campus and he will be teaching disc golf to over 1200 students, almost all Native American.

How can people use EDGE to promote disc golf in their area?

EDGE was developed as a program to not only give teachers the tools they need to teach our sport, but to bring large numbers of new players out to the local courses. Folks can go to www.edgediscgolf.org and download our brochure and program prospectus. Get those things into the hands of teachers and principals and superintendants and school board members. Do fund raising at tournaments to get EDGE packages into the schools in their area. Talk to Des and Jay and myself when you see us at tournaments and other events. EDGE is a 501(c)3 non-profit charitable educational organization and can accept tax deductible contributions.

Every dollar we get is multiplied into more equipment and curricula for more schools which means more kids learning to play, which means parents coming out and playing. I truly believe that EDGE will play a major role in the growth of disc golf for years to come.